The global audience of gamers on all platforms today exceeds 2 billion people. The video game industry continues to develop steadily, attracting more and more attention from other players in the media and entertainment industry. If you don’t have anyone to play with, LF Group is a great option to find game partners.
Games are becoming the leading platform for communication and social interaction among young audiences. So how is the video game industry changing?
Global market
Digital sales are replacing physical ones in the console games market, but it is happening moderately. To a greater extent, it is influenced by console corporations Microsoft and Sony, which have begun releasing separate versions of consoles without a disk drive in the last few years. Console game sales are expected to accrue to physical disks by the end of 2024, as both corporations have stated that the next generations of consoles will support physical media.
Game producers and technology companies are also moving in this direction. The concept of game subscription is not new, but it was previously unpopular due to the technical shortcomings of existing platforms and low consumer awareness. However, now the situation is changing since Google, Microsoft, and Apple are entering this market, which will lead to the accelerated introduction of game subscription services.
Another essential step of technology companies toward video games has become cloud gaming, which has already been launched or announced by many of the world’s largest corporations. Cloud gaming embraces a new audience of players who don’t have a gaming PC or console and are not so demanding on the quality of response or picture. Moreover, cloud gaming allows you to run any games on smartphones, reducing the entry threshold for users.
Mobile gaming
Mobile gaming killed portable consoles. Large companies share one view that an ordinary consumer only needs one universal device in his pocket, and today such a device is a smartphone. Moreover, mobile games are specially developed to attract a mass audience.
Handheld devices take up two of the top three lines in the list of the best-selling consoles ever. It’s not surprising: the opportunity to play while on the road, at work, or at school has always attracted gamers. A democratic price tag allowed those who weren’t used to spending a lot of money on such entertainment to join the games. Sony functionaries don’t plan to return to the production of pocket consoles after the PS Vita failure. And a very successful Switch is still not a full-fledged portable but a compromise hybrid solution.
VR devices
The gaming industry representatives have been convincing players for a long time that virtual reality technologies will give them future games and become one of the key arguments in the console war. Summing up the decade’s results, we have to admit that it hasn’t happened yet.
VR technologies are still too young. The devices themselves lack convenience, accessibility, and hardware capabilities. And projects for virtual reality still primarily lack scale and elaboration.
However, much may change very shortly. But it still makes sense to be skeptical about the prospects of virtual reality technologies in the coming years. At least until it becomes clear what plans the producers of the next-generation consoles have for VR.
Computer games
Epic Games has gained a strong influence on the computer games market in recent years, thanks to the success of the Fortnite video game. Valve’s Steam has been a leader among gaming marketplaces for many years, and the efforts of other companies in this direction haven’t greatly affected its market share. However, Epic Games managed to attract 85 million users to its online platform Epic Games Store, in less than a year. Given the limited time frame, it’s an outstanding result even compared to Steam. Epic Games is actively engaged in supporting developers by offering a lower commission from the sale of the game.
COVID-19 impact
Globally, the impact of COVID-19 accelerated the processes that were already developing in the market. All gaming platforms noted record levels of daily activity among players due to quarantine and a large amount of free time that one had to spend at home.
The closure of offline stores accelerated the rate of decline in revenue from the sale of physical copies of games. Therefore it’s expected that a return to previous rates won’t occur.
In the absence of traditional sports broadcasts, media players began to show esports competitions to their audience.
Conclusion
The gaming industry has always been focused on innovation. New technologies, new controls, and new features are expected to appear. As the world spends more and more time on its mobile phones and streaming services, games will become an essential field for revenue generation, and large technology companies will seek a way to get involved.